NASA has awarded a delivery order under the Rapid Spacecraft Acquisition III (Rapid III) contract to Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Virginia, known publicly as Orbital ATK, for the Landsat 9 spacecraft.

This contract is a 5-year, firm fixed-price delivery order for the purchase of the Landsat 9 spacecraft in the amount of $129.9 million. Orbital will design and fabricate the spacecraft, integrate the mission’s two government-furnished instruments, and conduct satellite-level testing, in-orbit satellite checkout, and mission operations support. The work will be performed at the contractor’s facilities and at the launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The spacecraft will extend the Landsat program’s record of land images to half a century. Landsat has provided accurate, 98-foot (30-meter) resolution, multi-spectral, global measurements of Earth’s land cover since 1972, building a freely available archive of more than six million satellite images. With data from Landsat satellites, ecologists have tracked deforestation in South America, water managers have monitored irrigation of farmland in the American West, and researchers have watched the growth of cities worldwide.

Landsat 9 is a cornerstone of our nation’s multi-satellite, multi-decadal, Sustainable Land Imaging (SLI) program. SLI is a NASA-U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) partnership to develop, launch, and operate a spaceborne system that will provide researchers and other users with high-quality, global, continuous land-imaging measurements. These data are compatible with the 44-year Landsat record and will evolve through introduction of new sensor and system technologies.

NASA will build, launch, and perform the initial check-out and commissioning of the satellite. USGS will operate Landsat 9 and process, archive, and freely distribute the mission’s data.

The Rapid III contract provides a rapid and flexible means to procure spacecraft in support of the scientific and technology development goals of NASA and other federal government agencies.

Orbital ATK has been selected by NASA to build the next civilian land remote sensing satellite, Landsat 9. The satellite, which will be operated by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), will allow the continuation of global terrestrial imaging by extending the Landsat series of satellites to more than five decades of operation. Orbital ATK was awarded the Landsat 9 contract based on a number of factors, including the success of the company-designed and built Landsat 8 satellite, which was launched in 2013. The company was also responsible for the successful Landsat 4 and Landsat 5 satellites launched in 1982 and 1984.

Landsat satellites provide useful imagery for those who work in fields such as agriculture, forestry, education, regional planning and global change research. For example, images from Landsat have shed light on the water crisis facing the western United States and the effects of climate change in Antarctica. Additionally, data from Landsat is crucial for emergency response and disaster relief.

Under the contract, Orbital ATK will design, manufacture and test the satellite in facilities in Gilbert, Arizona and will use the company’s LEOStar-3 platform, a medium-class low-Earth-orbit spacecraft successfully flown on Landsat 8 and NASA’s Fermi and Swift Gamma-ray astrophysics observatories. The company will also support launch, early orbit operations and on-orbit check-out of the observatory, which is scheduled for launch in December of 2020.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but cant SpaceX compete for this launch, if they are condidered as likely to obtain required certification before planned launch date? AFAIK, launch contract has not been awarded yet.

NASA has selected United Launch Services LLC (ULS) of Centennial, Colorado, to provide launch services for the Landsat 9 mission. The mission is currently targeted for a contract launch date of June 2021, while protecting for the ability to launch as early as December 2020, on an Atlas V 401 rocket from Space Launch Complex 3E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The total cost for NASA to launch Landsat 9 is approximately $153.8 million, which includes the launch service and other mission-related costs.

Landsat 9 is a partnership between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to continue the Landsat program’s critical role in monitoring, understanding, and managing the land resources needed to sustain human life. Today’s increased rates of global land cover and land use change have profound consequences for weather and climate change, ecosystem function and services, carbon cycling and sequestration, resource management, the national and global economy, and human health and society. Landsat is the only U.S. satellite system designed and operated to repeatedly make multi-spectral observations of the global land surface at a moderate scale that shows both natural and human-induced change.

NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida will manage the ULS launch service. The Landsat 9 Flight Project office is located at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and manages spacecraft development for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in partnership with USGS in Washington.

NASA Selects United Launch Alliance Reliable Atlas V Rocket to Launch Landsat 9 MissionCentennial, Colo. (Oct. 19, 2017) – NASA’s Launch Services Program announced today that it selected United Launch Alliance’s (ULA’s) proven Atlas V vehicle to launch the Landsat 9 mission, the ninth in the satellite program providing the longest continuous global record of Earth’s surface. This award resulted from a competitive Launch Service Task Order evaluation under the NASA Launch Services II contract.

“We are honored that NASA has entrusted ULA with launching this critical land imaging satellite,” said Tory Bruno, ULA’s president and chief executive. “ULA’s world-leading performance and reliability, paired with the tremendous heritage of 74 consecutive successful Atlas V launches, provides the optimal value for our customer. We look forward to working together again with our mission partners at NASA’s Launch Services Program, Goddard Space Flight Center and the U.S. Geological Survey in the integration and launch of this significant mission, contributing to the international strategy for examining the health and state of the Earth.”

The Landsat 9 mission is scheduled with a contract launch date of June 2021 while protecting for the ability to launch as early as December 2020 from Space Launch Complex-3 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. This mission will launch aboard an Atlas V 401 rocket.

ULA also launched NASA’s Landsat 8 mission in 2013 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard an Atlas V rocket. ULA and ULA heritage vehicles have launched more than 30 missions for the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center team. Since 2000, Atlas and Delta have performed more than 60 consecutive successful launches for NASA.

The Landsat program is a multi-satellite partnership between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey to monitor, understand, and manage the land resources needed to sustain human life. Landsat is the only U.S. satellite system designed and operated to repeatedly observe the global land surface at a moderate scale that shows both natural and human-induced change. Every day, Landsat satellites provide essential information to help land managers and policy makers make wise decisions about our resources and our environment.

With more than a century of combined heritage, United Launch Alliance is the nation’s most experienced and reliable launch service provider. ULA has successfully delivered more than 120 satellites to orbit that provide critical capabilities for troops in the field, aid meteorologists in tracking severe weather, enable personal device-based GPS navigation and unlock the mysteries of our solar system.

For more information on ULA, visit the ULA website at www.ulalaunch.com, or call the ULA Launch Hotline at 1-877-ULA-4321 (852-4321). Join the conversation at www.facebook.com/ulalaunch, twitter.com/ulalaunch and instagram.com/ulalaunch.

Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 are practically the same right?It looks like the sensors are mounted on top of the BUS. Could the connection structures be to weak to survive the transition from vertical to horizontal (encapsulated payload mating to F9) and back from horizontal to vertical (F9 erecting at the pad). (Mounts for [filled] propellant tanks inside the satellite are most likely also to weak) SpaceX still has some work to do before they can launch all payloads! (but do they want to do this?)

And speaking of this, does anyone know if NASA publishes a list of the risk category certified for each of the launch vehicles? I can see the vehicles listed on the performance web site, and I can find a document dealing with the certification options for each risk category, but I don't see a list saying Antares is certified for X, Falcon 9 is certified for X, etc.

Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 are practically the same right?It looks like the sensors are mounted on top of the BUS. Could the connection structures be to weak to survive the transition from vertical to horizontal (encapsulated payload mating to F9) and back from horizontal to vertical (F9 erecting at the pad).

Yes the sensors (OLI and TIRS) are mounted on "top" of the spacecraft bus but the mounts are designed to handle the loads when the spacecraft is horizontal. (the spacecraft and instruments are oriented horizontally in the TVAC chamber during pre-flight testing, for example).